Fermat’s Last Theorem

The book that I read recently. Actually read it back in 2013 but didn’t have a chance to put my thoughts together till now.

Actually, thanks to 子華, that I’m reading, or even knowing, this book at all.

This is the 3rd book that I’ve read because of 子華. The first one was a book called “Girlfriend in Coma”, back in my high school days. I took me a lot of effort to read that book since I didn’t read much back then and that was a pretty tough one for me to go through, especially with my poor English.

The second is 余秋雨的 "山居筆記", another one of those books that I probably wouldn’t even touch otherwise.

But I enjoyed these two books. Not because of 子華，but genuinely enjoyed them.

Back to Fermat’s Last Theorem. I found it very very interesting. It’s a Math-related story. I have always had a bit of pure math 情意結，even tho I turned out to be an engineer (applied math). I enjoyed doing math homework just for the sake of doing them. I always think that I probably wouldn’t be an engineer if I didn’t grow up in HK. I still rmb that back when I needed to rank my choices in my uni application. The ‘good’ choices for science students were doctor and engineer. But what I actually wanted to do was physics. 當年俾同學丙，話 physics 畢業無用，physics 用黎墊底，入唔到其他先入 physics. 另一尚算有興趣而又都算係 engin 既科目就係 ACE。Can’t even rmb what it stands for anymore, some sort of automation engineering. 記得 open day 既時候見到佢哋整 robot, 但那個當時是新 department, 又係無乜前景，香港無人會造機械人。At the end，首選了人人都爭的 double E, 但除此之外，我真係唔知揀乜好，於是第二已經揀咗無前景既 ACE, 第三已經係 phy, 仲記得其餘既都係求祈填吓，反正我都知如果連無乜人揀既 phy 都入唔到，都應該唔洗點讀。

最後，根本就無喺香港升學，報多大時是扮有大志的揀了 engin, 否則人家才不會給你奬學金。但讀咗一年，已經好有轉科既衝動，想讀 astron, 還去了人家的 astron lecture 去聽聽，睇吓係咪真係想讀，又去咗書局睇人哋Ｄ textbook, 但最後又係驚俾人 cut 奬學金而無做到。讀咗一年俾人 cut 咗無錢讀落去，到時真係要食屎。

Anyway, 其實讀咗都未必好，不過就係因為無讀到，而家就成日都 what if… 太多 romantic 既幻想。

Well… back to the book again. So reading Fermat’s Last Theorem is really cool cos when I did math, I learned the … well… math… and sometimes the name of the theorem (which I didn’t really care and couldn’t rmb most of the time) but never the story and the history behind it. In the book, there were lots of mathematician names that 喚起 some of my high school and university memories. And it’s kinda cool to know now that which person belongs to which era and which country and that some of them were acquaintance, rivals or friends. It’s really neat.

I haven’t touched pure math for so many years now. Some of the examples and proves that were presented in the book (the author did a good job in explaining things so that even lay person can understand the math so even tho I haven’t got much practice for a long time, I was still able to follow the steps) made me feel like I’m back in school, learning math again. The nostalgia feeling, bitter and sweet. And I do kinda agree that mathematicians (at least some of them) are seeking something more pure then science. It is the pure logic and it is beautiful when the logic comes together.

If math is something that you enjoy, you may want to read this book.